These days, it seems like everyone is innovating for the future. From eco-friendly prefab housing to high-tech city bridges, companies and cities are putting unique and interesting spins on what they believe will change our future. But, think about this for a second: Have you ever thought long and hard about what your thermostat will look like in 10 or 15 years?

Probably not. Turns out that the thermostat, for better or for worse, hasn’t really changed its form or function in the last few decades, aside from a digital interface and more sophisticated temperature-sensing technology. It seems as though there wasn’t much to say about the device until the introduction of the Nest: A high-tech smart thermostat that broke the mold for its minimalist design and mobile, sustainable programming options.

“Before Nest, people didn’t care about their thermostat,” says Matt Rogers, co-founder and VP of engineering at Nest. “We’ve really awoken that frustration by bringing great design, great technology and a great experience to the space.”

Apple rolled out an update to Mac OS X Mountain LionWednesday that brings with it system-wide Facebook integration.

On a day when most of the attention will be dedicated to the release of iOS 6 for mobile devices, Mac OS X 10.8.2 brings single sign-on access to the world’s most popular social network.

Users will be able to sign into Facebook, as they have with Twitter, and share links and photos, download friend details to the Contacts app, and also see notifications in the new Notifications Center.

The Facebook integration also stretches to Game Center, which now includes Facebook Likes on each game’s page and shared high scores through Facebook, email, and Twitter.

Better, faster, stronger. The new iMac claims to be better in all the ways you’d expect a refreshed product to be better: it steps up to Ivy Bridge, and packs NVIDIA Kepler chips for stronger graphics performance. It sports an improved display that cuts down on glare by 75 percent.

But thinner? For the first time in the product’s history, the iMac is missing a built-in optical drive, which allows it to measure just 5mm thick around the edges. We can’t say we’ve been waiting for a desktop quite that skinny, but if the new iMac delivers substantive improvements over the last-gen model, we won’t begrudge Apple a little eye candy. So, does the iMac do more than just sit pretty? Are the performance and display as good as we’ve been led to believe? In a word, yes. Here’s why.

LOOK AND FEEL

All told, the new design is eye-catching, and will probably earn you bragging rights the next time you give someone a tour of the home office. But how often are you going to be staring at your computer edge-on? And how many stares can a desktop draw if you never take it out in public? As you’ll see, we ultimately recommend the iMac for several reasons — namely, speed, display quality and graphics might. Thinness counts, too, but it feels more like a nice bonus than anything else.

KEYBOARD, MOUSE AND MAGIC TRACKPAD

Just as the overall design hasn’t changed much, neither have the included peripherals. As ever, the Bluetooth keyboard is a compact little thing, fairly small considering it was built to live on a desk (one big enough to accommodate a 21- or 27-inch computer, at that). In fact, the keys take up about as much space as on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and the spacing between the buttons is similar, too. The only reason it might have been bigger, then, would have been to accommodate a numpad, which you’ll not find here.

DISPLAY AND SOUND

If you’re thinking of buying the new iMac, this is your single best reason to take the plunge. That and, well, the screaming performance. Though the screens have the same resolution as the last generation (1,920 x 1,080 for the 21-inch model and 2,560 x 1,440 for the 27-incher), they promise 75 percent less glare, thanks to a full lamination manufacturing process that eliminates the gap between the LCD and the glass. In principle, it’s not unlike the optical bonding technique used in the Surface, iPhone 5 and other devices; we’ve just never seen it done on a screen quite this large. Additionally, Apple used a process called plasma deposition to apply an anti-reflective coating at an atomic level, instead of just blanketing the screen with the stuff. The goal there was to reduce reflections on that glass layer without dulling the quality of the colors coming from underneath.

PERFORMANCE

As you’d expect from a desktop that’s getting refreshed in late 2012, the new iMac steps up to Intel Ivy Bridge processors, along with NVIDIA Kepler GPUs. For the purposes of this review, we tested two units (one in each size, natch). This included a 21-inch system with a 3.1GHz Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU, and a 27-inch machine with a 3.4GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 2GB GeForce GTX 680MX. Were you to buy these yourself, they’d cost $2,149 and $2,599, respectively.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

We highly recommend the iMac to all the above groups, though unless you’re a pro or just have to have that extra screen real estate, the $1,799 price might deter you from choosing the 27-inch model. Even so, the 21-incher is a powerful machine in its own right, and is priced low enough that we can see folks picking one up to use in the home office, or as a shared family machine.

]]>http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/apple-imac-review-2012/feed/0SEC mulls hitting Netflix with suit over news shared on Facebookhttp://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/sec-mulls-hitting-netflix-with-suit-over-news-shared-on-facebook/
http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/sec-mulls-hitting-netflix-with-suit-over-news-shared-on-facebook/#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2012 09:34:23 +0000http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/?p=458Sharing news on Facebook may have landed Netflix in hot water with U.S. regulators.

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday gave Netflix and its chief executive, Reed Hastings, a “Wells Notice”regarding how Reed disclosed some information about the company. What that essentially means is that the SEC may take some sort of civil legal action against Netflix because of something Hastings posted on his Facebook wall about a new video-streaming milestone.

The SEC believes Netflix should have made a more formal announcement instead of simply notifying visitors to Hastings’ Facebook profile. A Regulation Fair Disclosure, which the SEC cites in its notice to Netflix, is meant to ensure that individual investors have the same access to information as large institutional investors by banning selective disclosure of material information.

HTC isn’t going to let Nokia keep the Chinese limelight for long: the phone maker has just launched three variants of its late 2012 flagship phones for China’s mainland, all of which should reach local stores by mid-December. Those looking for sheer brawn will want the Butterfly. While it’s ultimately a slight variant on the J Butterfly (Droid DNA to Americans) that should reach China Unicom, the 1080p smartphone should come to the country in rarer brown and white hues alongside the black we’ve already seen in the US. Localized models of theWindows Phone 8X and 8S are similarly inbound, but their aces in the hole should be sheer ubiquity — variants are on the way for WCDMA (China Unicom), CDMA2000 (China Telecom) and TD-SCDMA (China Mobile) networks. We don’t immediately have pricing for the two Windows Phone 8 handsets, but the Butterfly should cost a suitably large ¥4,799 ($771) contract-free.

Tim Cook has dropped the strongest hint yet that Apple is developing its own ’iTV’ television set.

Speaking to Brian Williams of NBC, Apple’s chief executive officer said the TV set was ‘an area of intense interest’ for the company.

In a full interview that will be screened Thursday evening in the United States, Cook coyly suggested that the humble television set could be next in line for an Apple-style modernisation.

“When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,” he said.

New era for connected TVs?

Speculation has been rife for well over twelve months that Apple’s next big move will be to usher in a new era of connected televisions.

Recent reports have outlined a Siri-controlled system, new cable-cutting content subscription models and an iOS-like UI.

Although a launch is not expected in the immediate future, Cook’s comments are sure to excite Apple fans eagerly awaiting Cupertino’s next major breakthrough.

]]>http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/apple-ceo-tim-cook-says-tv-is-an-area-of-intense-interest/feed/0iPad Mini 2: Release date, price, specs, news and rumourshttp://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/ipad-mini-2-release-date-price-specs-news-and-rumours/
http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/ipad-mini-2-release-date-price-specs-news-and-rumours/#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2012 08:35:25 +0000http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/?p=446Although the iPad mini only went on sale in November, there are already rumours to be found regarding the next iteration of the device. Apple, as is its custom, will never be drawn on speculation about upcoming devices – but that hasn’t stopped the whisperings circulating around the internet.

Apple iPad mini 2 – Screen

Probably the biggest gripe with Apple’s first entrant in the small screened tablet market was the resolution of its screen. With just a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution and 163 pixels per inch, it was the same tech we first saw on the iPad 2 and those dastardly pixels were easy to spot. Compare that resolution to its two main competitors, Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD which both sit at 1280 x 800, you can see it was outdated before it was even released.

Apple will surely rectify this with its follow up and sources coming out of China say AU Opotronics, the company who manufacture screens for Apple, have already started work on a 2048 x 1536 display which has a definitely retina moniker worthy 324 ppi.

Source: Slashgear

Apple iPad mini 2 – release date

Apple had pretty much stuck with a yearly release cycle of its iOS devices until it dropped the fourth generation of the iPad barely 6 months after the third. So is Apple’s release schedule all up in the air? Sources seem to think not, with many believing the iPad mini 2 will in fact live on until its first birthday without being replaced.

]]>http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/ipad-mini-2-release-date-price-specs-news-and-rumours/feed/0Did the Samsung Galaxy SIII Just Show Up in Vietnam?http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/did-the-samsung-galaxy-siii-just-show-up-in-vietnam/
http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/did-the-samsung-galaxy-siii-just-show-up-in-vietnam/#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2012 08:23:53 +0000http://magazine3.com/demo/topgadget/?p=449

Samsung’s Galaxy SIII is due to launch officially on May 3rd. We’ve already seen some blurry images of what might be the phone—but now an even more convincing example has surfaced in Vietnam.

Engadget reports that the handset showed up on Vietnamese site Tinhte—though the original page is now down. No worries: we still have the pictures and specs that were leaked.

According to the leak, the phone—going by model number GT-I9300—packs: a 720 x 1184 4.6-inch display (that’s 320 DPI), a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 2,050mAh battery, an 8-megapixel camera and 16GB of storage.

There also appears to be some kind of plastic rim around this leaked device, making it look slightly larger than it actually is and disguising the edge of the handset.

Google today unveiled a fresh look for its YouTube video Web site, going with a cleaner design that emphasizes subscriptions and channels even more than before.

The company made the announcement on its blog, running through some of the changes.

Those changes include placing the video at the top of the page, putting it front and center for the viewer, and adding elements such as subscribe, the social action options, and the video information right below the player. Playlists are on the right, and can be browsed while the video is playing. The company said these changes are being made throughout the site.

The hope is that viewers come for one video and can browse and find more videos afterwards, keeping them on the site longer.

YouTube also introduced a guide that alerts users of new videos in their subscription list. The subscriptions and guide can be found on other devices beyond the PC, including Android, iPhone, PlayStation 3, and Google TV.

Google last redesigned YouTube a year ago with an early emphasis on channels.